Should Students Care About Academic Research?
October 22nd, 2008YES!!
For those of you who have followed this blog, you know that I have had an erstwhile interest in whether research conducted at business schools provides benefits to students, business practitioners, and society at large. I have been a staunch defender of academic research, and an advocate for both practical and rigorous research at America’s universities (see On Managerial Relevance, Practically Irrelevant, or The Latest Criticism for background).
In response to harsh criticism of business schools leveled by Bennis & O’Toole (2005, Harvard Business Review) that our research is largely irrelevant and that we are failing at our mission to educate and influence managers, I wrote in May of 2007:
Do I believe that business schools ought to be relevant? Absolutely. Do I believe that rigorous research serves an important role in our field? Absolutely. Do I think that we are failing in our goals to be both relevant and rigorous? I’m not so sure yet where I stand on that issue, …although I admit that I think we’re doing a pretty good job. While I absolutely think it is worthwhile to consider these issues, I think we need to gather more data and let the data speak rather than come to any hasty conclusions.
I was therefore pleased to see several authors go out and do just that – collect some data and attempt to rigorously examine that question. Consistent with my priors, Debanjan Mitra (a former colleague of mine in the NYU Ph.D. program) and Peter Golder (a current colleague of mine at NYU) demonstrate in a recent study that academic research indeed provides value to students (see Academic Research is Good for MBA Students).
As explained by the Financial Times:
…when a business school generates more research, its graduating students’ salaries go up.
Since companies are paying these higher salaries, they are obviously recognising the value of students educated in a more research-oriented environment.
This amount is above the salary graduates would normally receive based on their quality on entering an MBA programme (as reflected by a high GMAT score or low school acceptance rate) and a business school’s resources.
Equally important, …when the number of faculty research publications increases, students’ evaluations of professors also go up.
…there are two main causes of these results. First, researchers can teach students state-of-the-art knowledge, including the latest models, findings and frameworks.
A second cause is that research professors can conceptualise problems, generate logically valid hypotheses and then test them with relevant data and appropriate methods. An understanding of this knowledge-discovery process is essential for students who must “learn how to learn”, so that their education remains relevant in a fast-changing world.
The authors then conclude:
All-important business problems are complex. We should not denigrate the importance of managerial judgment and experience that accumulate during a career. But neither should we denigrate the value of a systematic, research- based approach to conceptualising and analysing business situations. In business, there are pros and cons to any path but a research approach can help evaluate the validity of these opinions and reach sounder conclusions.
Does this now mean that business faculty are vindicated? Well, not exactly. I will be the first to admit that this debate is far from over. However, I think this piece of evidence is a step in the right direction toward resolving that debate. But we should not stop here. We need more such research. I would therefore encourage others to try to replicate their results to confirm or refute their findings using different measures of research intensity and performance, and using other sources of data.
To view the Mitra & Golder study in full, see the Journal of Marketing website.
